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Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
North Dakota tribes ask circuit judges for rehearing of voting rights case
Jamie Azure, chair of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, speaks during the Tribal Leaders Summit in Bismarck on Sept. 4, 2024. Turtle Mountain, Spirit Lake Nation and three tribal citizens are challenging a ruling in a voting rights case. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor) The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, Spirit Lake Nation and three tribal citizens this week asked the full 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to review a three-judge panel's finding that they lack standing to bring a voting discrimination case against the state of North Dakota. In a 2-1 decision earlier this month, the panel overruled a North Dakota federal district court's decision that a redistricting plan adopted by the state in 2021 diluted the voting power of Native voters. 'Turtle Mountain fought hard for a fair and legal map. When the state draws unlawful districts, Courts must step in to protect voters — not pave the way for injustice,' Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Chairman Jamie Azure said in a statement published by the Campaign Legal Center, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs in the suit. 'We will continue to fight for fair representation.' Appeals court rules against North Dakota tribes in voting rights case The panel's decision didn't speak to whether the map itself was discriminatory; instead, the judges found that private individuals cannot use a key federal civil rights law as a vehicle to file cases under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which outlaws race-based voting discrimination. The panel in its ruling sent the case back to North Dakota U.S. District Judge Peter Welte with instructions to dismiss the lawsuit. If its ruling stands, North Dakota would revert back to the 2021 map. But if the plaintiffs' request for an en banc rehearing is granted, the case would go before all 11 judges on the 8th Circuit for review. 'Section 2 is the foundational statute that Congress enacted to fight the scourge of racial discrimination in voting, but citizens in this circuit can no longer enforce the right it provides them,' the plaintiffs argue in a brief urging the full appellate court to consider the case. Private individuals and groups previously could file discrimination lawsuits against governments under just Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act without having to invoke Section 1983, a separate civil rights statute. Then, the 8th Circuit in a controversial 2023 ruling on an Arkansas voting rights case found that Section 2 alone doesn't give private parties the right to sue. Instead, the circuit declared that it is the responsibility of the U.S. Attorney General to file Section 2 discrimination cases. Tribes, state argue redistricting case to federal appeals court For more than a year, the question remained open as to whether Section 1983 offered a viable alternative for bringing such Voting Rights Act claims. In a May 14 ruling, the three-judge panel decided it does not. In a majority opinion, the panel wrote that the language of the Voting Rights Act indicates that Congress didn't intend for citizens to file race discrimination claims through Section 1983. The lone dissenting judge on the panel — Chief Judge Steven Colloton — noted in his opinion that private plaintiffs have brought more than 400 actions under Section 2 since 1982. The plaintiffs in their brief point out that the 8th Circuit is the only appellate circuit in the country to rule that Section 2 cannot be enforced through lawsuits brought by private citizens. The circuit includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska and Arkansas. 'Outside of this circuit, every American citizen can rely on an unbroken line of Supreme Court and circuit precedent to enforce the individual rights given to them by Congress in the Voting Rights Act,' their filing states. 'But as a result of the panel decision here, and the prior decision in Arkansas, American citizens in this circuit are denied that right.' The lawsuit was triggered by a redistricting plan adopted by the North Dakota Legislature in 2021 that placed the Turtle Mountain and Spirit Lake reservations in new districts. U.S. District Court Judge Peter Welte in 2023 ruled that the new map was discriminatory and ordered the Legislature to implement a new map that placed the reservations in the same voting district. Three Native American lawmakers from that district were elected in 2024: Sen. Richard Marcellais and Rep. Jayme Davis — both citizens of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa — and Rep. Collette Brown, a citizen of the Spirit Lake Nation and plaintiff in the lawsuit. 'The fair map we secured led to a historic first — a Spirit Lake Nation member elected to the North Dakota Legislature,' Spirit Lake Nation Chairperson Lonna Jackson-Street said in a Wednesday statement published by the Campaign Legal Center, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs in the case. 'This decision threatens that progress and weakens our voice in state government.' Marcellais had previously served 15 years in the statehouse until he lost his bid for reelection in 2022. He was reelected in 2024. Davis was first elected in 2022, then reelected last year. If the 2021 map is reinstated, three state lawmakers would move to different districts, according to the North Dakota Secretary of State's Office. Rep. Colette Brown, D-Warwick, would go from representing District 9 to District 15. Rep. Donna Henderson, R-Calvin, would switch from District 15 to District 9B, while Sen. Kent Weston, R-Sarles, would switch from District 15 to District 9. They would all have to seek reelection in 2026. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Devils Lake or Spirit Lake? In 1996, Mni Wakan Oyate voted to change tribe's name to reflect true translation
Mar. 11—Editor's note: Mni Wakan is spelled differently across sources. Some of the variations include Mne Wakan, Mni Waukan and Miniwakan. The Grand Forks Herald uses the "Mni Wakan" spelling in this story because that is how it is spelled by the Spirit Lake Tribe online. SPIRIT LAKE RESERVATION — Whether intentionally or by mistake, it seems white settler misinterpretation of an Indigenous story is behind the "devils" named throughout eastern North Dakota, including the name of a city, the lake that borders it and, up until the 1990s, an Indigenous tribe whose reservation includes much of the lake. The lake was named "Mni Wakan," which is Sacred Water in the Dakota language, because of the Unktehi (Water Spirits) said to be found in all bodies of water, according to Louis Garcia, designated historian for the Spirit Lake Nation, who wrote a piece about the subject that was published in 2023 in the Devils Lake Journal. "The Water Spirit wants to keep the water, and the Thunderbird wants to bring it up into the clouds and make rain," Garcia told the Grand Forks Herald. "It's just their Indian way of explaining the hydrological cycle — how fog and rain and ice and snow work, but they use this story and they make it so that it's sacred." The Unktehi are said to be protective of the water, drowning those who try to take it. This is why they are sometimes referred to as water "monsters," or "the Terrible One," rather than the more neutral term of "spirits." So when the Dakota people tried to explain to French explorers why the lake was sacred, the Frenchmen listened to the story and concluded instead that these Unktehi were monsters, and subsequently named the lake Lac du Diable, or Lake of the Devils, Garcia wrote in his Journal piece. "There was a translation problem," he said. The tribe later became known as the Devils Lake Sioux, though their Dakota name is Mni Wakan Oyate — which translates to something along the lines of "people of the Spirit Lake." Pauline Graywater, a woman whose obituary says she lived on the reservation throughout her life before dying in 2020, was interviewed by a Grand Forks Herald reporter in the early 1990s. She said that when the white people came to the area, they twisted things around and, after naming Devils Lake, "they started naming everything about the devil." Standing outside her then-place of work, St. Jude's Retirement Home, located outside of Fort Totten, Graywater told the reporter there was a 'Devil's Tooth' right down the road. "They named it that, I don't know why," she said. "It's just a big rock — they say it looks like a tooth." Graywater had been told by elders in the community that the story of the rock had to do with a young maiden who, with a baby on her back, left the camp where her group was having a gathering because she was angry with her husband. When he and another man followed after her, they didn't find her, but instead found what was later named the Devil's Tooth. "They believe that she turned into a rock," Graywater said. In Garcia's work gathering and preserving Indigenous history and stories such as the one Graywater shared, he said he didn't get the idea that most people were sitting down and analyzing the name of Devils Lake, questioning why it was that way — much like one wouldn't be expected to do so for any other location. "Pick any town anywhere, they just pass off the name," he said. "(They say,) 'That's what we've always called it.'" In 1996, tribal members voted to change their name to the Spirit Lake Nation, a decision that seemed natural — returning to a more accurate translation of the Dakota name, Myra Pearson, former tribal chairwoman and current executive director of Spirit Lake Tribal Housing, told the Grand Forks Herald. An archival article written by Kris Halvorson, a staff writer at the Journal — presumably the Devils Lake Journal — says the vote for the name change was 265 to 125. Pearson recalls working in the financial department at that time. "We had to change everything — all the check blanks," she said. "Back then we didn't have all the technology we have today. It was quite a job back then, but they got it done." It was a long time coming, though, and she remembers strong support for the change. At the same time that then Chairman Elmer White brought the matter to a vote, a much more controversial matter was also being voted on. "That was also the third time they brought the issue to the people to open up the reservation for alcohol," Pearson said. Alcohol had been banned from the reservation since the 1960s, as previously reported by WDAY. Elders were angry with White, asking why he would allow the issue to be put to a vote for a third time when there was such strong opposition to it, Pearson said. "The crazy thing was, there weren't a whole lot of elders, but somehow they always had that thing voted down," she said with a chuckle. It seemed support for the change came largely from the reservation's younger population. "I remember people saying, 'Well, it'll bring in more money,'" Pearson said. "But I also remember one of the chairmen saying, 'Money isn't the answer.'" At the time, theirs was the only dry reservation, she said; this was something outlined in their treaty, and she couldn't imagine it changing. "It's kind of the root of all evil that goes on here," Pearson said. The subject was dropped for quite some time afterwards, but in 2019, the tribe ultimately voted in favor of allowing the sale of alcohol at its casino in St. Michael.
